Lane's classmate from Graduate School days lives in Taiwan with his wife. Even during those days we talked of visiting them in Taiwan. Well we finally kept our promise during Spring Break. (Be it 10-15 years later.)
Jeff and JuiMei treated us well, housing feeding and planning out activities for us.
Day 1: Jeff and JuiMei were working so we were left to entertain ourselves. One quick 30 minute ride by fast train and we were in Taipei scouting out the LDS Temple.
This is a subway legend listing near-by attractions, second from the bottom, and ta-da there it is!
We found it! To our dismay it was closed for cleaning! Guy and Lane were planning on doing baptisms. Not only that but the one restaurant we wanted to go to for lunch was also closed. (The only day of the year!) Go figure!
So we settled for this dumpling house. After a few, "I'm not going to eat thats!" We all found at least one yummy thing we liked. Drake enjoyed the lazy susan and spun it fast enough dishes went flying off. Between Lane and the waitress catching most of the fly-aways only one dish shattered on the floor.
Rough cement slide although it ripped up the boys' legs, pants, you name it, they kept going doing down. Cool idea to have four lined up together, still wondering why it was made out of material that can hurt the kids.
Scouted out a geocache at this park. Sorry we aren't disclosing its location.
Changing of the guards at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Being the last change of the day it was quite showy and very much Drill Team style and all the guards left when done.
Look closely, you can see the huge statue of Chiang Kai-shek through the open door.
The entire park was very beautiful. Lane and the boys found some geocaches as well.
Stopped for a little smackerel of Banana Milk, one of our favorite treats!
Next was this night market, hitting the jackpot with Crepes, although what we ended up with wasn't quite what we thought we were getting. I only heard complaints from Lane who was the only one to notice the difference.
Day 2: Just your typical pizza from Costco, Chicken with Peking duck sauce, YUM!!!
Yellow watermelon anyone? We were told that the red watermelon use to taste better but now the yellow almost tastes better. Tasted great to us! Oh the fruit behind/next to the watermelon is a fruit only grown in Taiwan. Like a very airy/apple filled with lots of extra water.
Our hosts rented a van big enough to carry us all and we headed north east of the country.
Famous Taiwan 101 building. It once was the tallest building in the world.
Pit stop at a few factory/food shops. We were dragging out our time hoping the rain would go away so we could enjoy our night market.
Night Market
This was interesting. A tortilla with crushed peanuts, three different scoops of ice cream and cilantro. (See blurry up close photo below with fresh banana milk behind.)
Sunrise from our hotel balcony. Of course it was very beautiful and something my phone camera couldn't quite capture!
Hotel for the night. Hot Springs are huge here, in fact the water we bathed in came from the springs. Due to the springs being both hot and cold the water was a bit muddy. The pool is on the roof, You can see the ledge sticking out over the hotel. Frigid water didn't keep Lane and the three older boys from a dip that night.
Around every corner are temples that look like this. Very elaborate and bright!
"Peek-a-boo", trying to keep Drake entertained as we drive from one attraction to the other.
These are tombs. Pretty fancy! Often located on hill sides with the best views.
Day 3: Beach time!
Traditional Arts Cultural Park
A park full of arts, crafts, stores, Taiwanese traditional art museum, demonstrations, performances, acrobats, puppets and food all showing traditional Taiwanese culture.
Learning to flip puppets.
I had to put this picture in just because I love the look on Guy's face as a bubble pops in his face!
Turtle Island
Rice paddies
Day 4: Headed North, very north
Catch of the day
Yehliu Geopark
Wow! Very tip top point of Taiwan where waves, wind and mother nature have carved rocks into beautiful fun shapes. We hiked to the top of the "mountain" which ended up being more of a hike than we were planning on, especially with Drake needing to be carried up and down all the steps.
The Queen's Head
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Only Lane and Duncan made it to the end of the trail, as far as you go, everybody off!
That night we went to Pinsi to send off a floating lantern. This was awesome! Lanterns were so popular with tourists that the government decided on one town to be a year round around the clock place for tourist to send their wishing lanterns. It is located in a valley next to a river and the wind just carries them either upstream or down. The launching point is on a train track which everyone needs to quickly clear when a train passes through inches from your face. Pretty cool!
Another way to make your wishes come true, write them on bamboo and hang them up for someone like me to get a great picture.
A suspension bridge I choose not to cross, but didn't deter Lane and the boys.
We wrote our wishes on the four sides and sent it off on its way.
Boys have all agreed they want to move to Taiwan!
Notice: I have more pictures on my "real" camera that I will be adding soon. A notice post will inform when that happens. We just barely set up our "real" computer so hopefully soon. Although it took a couple of week to get this post finished. 😕😕😕
